As I mentioned in some other threads, I trapped a couple of old farmsteads of my relatives this past weekend as well as trying to hunt some fall turkey. It ended up being sort of a "Bridge Too Far" operation (check out the movie if you don't know what I mean) but I did catch a few critters, got to spend Sat. evening with 2 fine old ladies who have a combined 177 years on Earth, and watched my 14-year get real excited see some turkeys running around the countryside (unfortunately the birds knew the land better than we did).

I found out that in old farm sites a guy never knows what's buried just beneath the surface or what's in reach of a critter until you live catch a coon and give it time to mess around with things. Came across this next to the first old house. This boar ended up being a much larger (longer) coon than what appears in the pix.

His little friend about 100 feet away

At the other place, we found this gal. Quite a porker.

Nothing happened Sat. night and Monday when I went back down to pull my gear, I only had the mandatory farmyard skunk for my efforts.

The smaller coon won't be going to auction; only would stretch "large" and he may go blue when I flesh him. I'll try to do a wall hanger next spring for ebay. The other two both went 3-4XL.

I was going to hit it hard this year but sort of got overwhelmed with other stuff and basically have no vacation time left after last weekend. I'll try to get out what I have ready (may not even set any legholds) and see what happens. Supposed to get colder next week (highs in the 20s for 3 days straight). We'll figure out lessons learned by early December...

_________________"And God said, Let us make man in our image …and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, …the fowl of the air…and all the creatures that move along the ground. Genesis 1:26

Thanks Rick, the coon action may start slow. The wind is supposed to howl tonight and tomorrow (plan to put some sets out tomorrow). Monday we may get "snow accumulation" and the highs for Tues. through Thurs. are supposed to be in the teens and 20s. I certainly hope winter doesn't settle in for good on Veterans Day. I've seen them start that soon before and its no fun. The 96/97 winter started about then with inch and half of ice and then snow. There was a point when I didn't leave town for a month. I recovered a lot of trapping gear in the spring...

_________________"And God said, Let us make man in our image …and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, …the fowl of the air…and all the creatures that move along the ground. Genesis 1:26

Glad you're out there PC Looks like success to me! We had more skunks this year than I can ever remember. Have you ever thought about putting them on ebay? With the storm coming in, hopefully the critters will boogie around. Tomorrow is our whitetail opener for rifle, so I will be trying to put a buck on the ground. I'm more looking forward to a fox or coyote, but some venison for the freezer would be good too.

Yeah, tanned skunk pelts would probably do well on ebay. The problem is getting them clean enough of grease. I can flesh them well enough to get dried out and send to auction but tanning them might be a little bit tougher, especially the stinking (no pun intended) tail!

_________________"And God said, Let us make man in our image …and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, …the fowl of the air…and all the creatures that move along the ground. Genesis 1:26

I picked this little tubby up from my friend Ry yesterday. He saw fat boy munching on spilled corn by one of their grain bins and went after him. I guess it was quite a sight with Ry trying to shoot his .22 with one hand and hold a big light in the other. Finally took him out.

Its one of the fattest coons I've seen for a while and thought it would go high in weight but was only about 18 pounds with me on the scale. I think the girth fooled me. Thought it was a sow until I was pulling down the hide and found two little nads. I don't know if it takes a few years for a boar coon to develop a good nut sack or if just all the fat hide things. Interesting is that my heaviest coon from last year (about 25 pounds) was from this same location and only went 2 XL on the board. Maybe they just eat too well there...

_________________"And God said, Let us make man in our image …and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, …the fowl of the air…and all the creatures that move along the ground. Genesis 1:26

I don't have a lot of sets out yet but was checking before the front and cold come in today. The last sets were at Stinkbait's country place and as I was about to enter the brush to check on a dp behind a little outbuilding, I heard the distinctive sound of metal against metal and knew I had something.

Quite the nice tubby and weighed about 20 pounds on my thrift store scale (I weigh myself and then weigh again holding the critter). A lot of burs on this puppy, will have to comb it out before I flesh it. Nice way to end the morning...

_________________"And God said, Let us make man in our image …and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, …the fowl of the air…and all the creatures that move along the ground. Genesis 1:26

NonPC, Im seeing quite an improvment in them furs! Really nice coons you are getting too. I think them dp's are gonna rule the day for ya! Great job on getting them set up on great spots and, Great work you can be very proud of all the way around!

Thanks Amak! I've learned a lot from all the folks on WAT, one which was gaining the confidence in putting up fur (at least some species) that could stand inspection on the international selling level. I don't know if you all checked out the Tman thread I posted on the "fur market" thread but there was one guy on there that was making the case he was going to make the same as guys sending to auction with his $8 ave selling to Groenwald. One of his justifications was he has more time not finishing his fur to catch more coon. His shear volume of critters may make him more money than me but here's my personal data. I've sold raccoon at the last 4 NAFA auctions. 29 skins total (obviously not a lot but starting to get to a number where one exceptional good or bad one doesn't mess up the mean). I'm averaging $17.22 a piece. I'll take that. Now I'm blessed to live in an area that has high quality coon (generally bigger in size, heavy furred for the trim trade, although my colors often suck). I feel bad for the great trappers who live in regions that just don't have high quality raccoons. I guess just do the best a person can with the best animals you have available.

As for the dps, yes they're great. If a guy just wanted to do coon, had the time to run a long line, and could gather up permission for a lot of old farm places and such, you could lay out a lot of dps in a weekend. Besides some snares, I would certainly add half a dozen dps in a SHTF bug out bag sort of thing. Coon are plentiful across the country and would be a good protein source...

_________________"And God said, Let us make man in our image …and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, …the fowl of the air…and all the creatures that move along the ground. Genesis 1:26

Very nice PC. I wonder if the Groenwald guy maybe has a vested interest in advertising for them? One way i use to do everything cept rats n mink was to skin and freeze it then put it up in January and February(i had a furbuyers license and could hold green fur, back then illinois didnt allow you to hold green fur with a hunting or trapping license over 10 days after the season). Your doing good and lookin to have a stellar season. Set out first coon traps yesterday. Picked up a roadkill med coon and he was lookin better. Not too blue. I like my coon buster DPs, cheap n simple, kinda like me lol. What kind of DPs are you setting PC?

Back- The dps I have are Dukes. The half a dozen new ones I got in Oct. were painted flat brown on the outside. I like them a lot!

SD allows folks to keep green skins of furbearers 10 days after the season if they get them "checked" in (fill out some paper work that will never be seen again unless some issue arises). Because our season on upland critters has been liberalized for about a decade (basically no season on coyote, fox, badger, possum, skunk, and coon except can't catch masked bandits within 30 feet of a waterway until the "water" season opens), the only critters that need the paper work done is mink, weasel, mrat, and beaver. Bobcats (don't have around here--supposedly) already have to get checked in within 5 days of catch so do another check in 10 days after the season closes seems repetitive. I'd have to check with someone to see if that fulfills the need to know that it wasn't caught out of season or not...

_________________"And God said, Let us make man in our image …and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, …the fowl of the air…and all the creatures that move along the ground. Genesis 1:26

Sounds like a pain in the rear PC but i guess its necessary. I knew some that trapped from September thru march. Sometimes into April, you could see it in their frozen hides or carcass critters too. Its a shame they have to write asinine laws like that.

9 F this morning with a 10+ mph wind when I headed out. I still don't have any k-9 sets out and didn't think any coon would have moved the past couple of days but needed to do the 48 hour check. Stinkbait claimed he checked the dps on his place on Tues. so the other sets are coon cubbies so wasn't worried about anything really being out in the cold for 2 days.

Nothing in the 5 cubbies on two parcels of Thor's and then on to Stinkbait's. The 2nd dp is set up in the corner of his woods that has open cropland about 10 yards in either direction. The foam cup was off of this dp on Monday and was off again this morning and I was wondering what had been messing with it when the leaves rustled a few feet in the other direction and found this guy.

Not a bad coon, 13-14 pounder that will probably go 2 XL. Never know about these northern coon, especially early in the season. If they're not ready to go den up for the winter, some will move around in the cold. Another one to the boards...

_________________"And God said, Let us make man in our image …and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, …the fowl of the air…and all the creatures that move along the ground. Genesis 1:26

Very nice PC. Something ive learned around here is if its cold "barn coon" throw the rules out the window. If theyre living/scavenging around building and barns they tend to move a lot more then the ridge runners n swamp dwellers. We got down to 20 with a wind chill making it 12. By the roadkill i seen and friends picked up they moved some, probably right after dusk before the front kicked in. Keep up the good work! Nice lookin bandits.